Throughout the year, the School receives visits from Tomorrow Man and Tomorrow Woman- organisations that work with young men to re-define healthier versions of masculinity and with young women to empower them to confidently express their needs and opinions.

They hold workshops with our Year 10 students, to unpack gender expectations existing in society today. The workshops are particularly appreciated by students due to its student-lead and interactive nature.

“The idea is to unpack through conversation, so we talk about the good and not so good parts about masculinity, and how it affects young people. The workshop is for the students, hearing from them about their experiences and how gender stereotypes play out in their lives,” said Mel King, a facilitator from Tomorrow Man.

The initiative to include Tomorrow Man and Woman in the curriculum was taken by Deputy Head Wellbeing, Mr Andrew Lincoln and a Year 12 student at the time.

“In 2018, there was a show on TV that I watched, about young men and how to support them. The next day, one of the Year 12 students asked me if I had watched the show the evening before and proposed for our School to invite Tomorrow Man,” said Mr Lincoln.

Tomorrow Man was invited to hold workshops with the students in 2018. Tomorrow Woman trialled their workshops with Bunbury Cathedral Grammar School two years later. These turned out to be a great success and are now run across Australia.

“In the Tomorrow Women’s workshops, we talk about gender expectations faced by women, and how that effects our mental health and our ability to speak up. We also practice ways to speak up, in order to make changes for ourselves and women around us,” said Lucy Scott a facilitator for Tomorrow Woman.

“It is so much more now than what it used to be when it started… The beauty of having someone else come in, is that it removes the teacher versus student aspect and allows the conversations to, perhaps, be more genuine,” said Mr Lincoln.